Out of the Woods
by RainbowVeins1612
Summary: Looking back, I guess I knew from the beginning that things would never have worked between us. Every fight was like being lost in the woods and I needed to know, "Are we out of the woods yet?"
1. And Now She Was Crying

**Mercury's POV**

"You have got to be kidding me," I mumbled to myself as Professor Snape read out the list of partners for the year. I picked up my things and wandered over to my new desk, dropping my heavy bag onto the table with a loud thud. My new potions partner rolled his eyes at me and dragged his things further onto his side of the table. Professor Snape continued to drone on for a while before finally beginning the actual lesson. We worked in silence, each one of us taking it in turn to stir our potion, only speaking to one another when it was absolutely necessary.

He tried to bark orders at me but I wasn't one of his friends, he couldn't order me around like a dog and expect me to lay down and roll over. I could see him getting more and more frustrated with me as he ordered and I disobeyed. I think he was glad when class was over, I know I was. We arranged a time during the week to work on our homework, Professor Snape loved to set homework that involved a lot of effort, this weeks was to produce a perfect vial of the potion we had worked on at the end of last year, he didn't expect any of us to even remember it and I swear he enjoyed when we failed.

* * *

He made me meet him in the dungeons on Wednesday night, it was cold down here and as I descended the steps into the Slytherin's territory I wished I had thought to grab my cloak. He was stood outside Professor Snape's classroom, having convinced the potions master to let us use his classroom to prepare our homework we were probably at an advantage over the rest of the class.

"Malfoy," I said as I approached, his pale blonde hair looked darker in the flickering light from the torches on the wall. He nodded at me, deeming me unworthy of his words. I rolled my eyes at him and followed him into the classroom. He'd already set up a cauldron for us and laid out our ingredients. We set to work straight away, getting this over as quick as possible would mean less time we had to spend together.

He put some of the ingredients in the cauldron and they began to boil. "You, keep stirring that till it turns purple." He told me as he took a knife and began to cut up some kind of bug I didn't know the name of.

"Yes, Sir." I said sarcastically and took hold of a ladle, the corner of his lips turned up slightly and I thought to myself that I may have actually almost made Draco Malfoy smile. I lazily stirred the cauldron. I wasn't all that in to making potions, I was fascinated by their abilities and affects but not actually making them.

"That turned purple about five minutes ago, Rayne" Draco said in a way that sounded like he was mocking me, "That means you can stop stirring it." I rolled my eyes and dropped the ladle.

"Now, crush those." He said pointing in the direction of a jar of what looked to be Newt's eyes. "Ten should be enough." He said, I ignored him since he was ordering me about again, I knew how to make this potion, I didn't need him to tell me what to do. "Today would be nice, Rayne." He sighed.

"You'll get them when I'm good and ready." I told him and proceeded to sit back in my chair and twirl my wand between my fingers. He narrowed his eyes at me before opening the jar and crushing the gooey looking eye balls by himself. I began to measure out the next ingredient for the potion, mostly to show him I was capable of doing things when he wasn't telling me to do them.

We worked in silence for the next half hour before we were done. Draco ladled the potion we had created into two vials, closing each with a cork stopper and labelling one with his name. I labelled the other with my own name. We each placed our finished homework on Professor Snape's desk before exiting the classroom. We didn't say goodbye, didn't even acknowledge each other as we went our separate ways, him to the Slytherin common room and me to the stairs.

* * *

 **Draco's POV**

She was insufferable, she didn't listen to a word I said and never did as she was told. Why Professor Snape would pair me with such an annoying girl I couldn't begin to fathom. Every time I told her to do something she would ignore me and do something else instead. We'd been working together for a couple of weeks now and it wasn't getting any better, occasionally she would say something sarcastic or make a comment and it would almost make me laugh but not enough that I ever thought I would like her.

I'd been having a particularly bad day the next Wednesday we got together to work. Her comments were more frequent today and more insufferable than ever.

"Don't you want to pass this class?" I raised my voice as I spoke, "Why don't you ever just do as you're told?" I snapped at her and she frowned at me, narrowing her startlingly green eyes.

"Because you never ask nicely." She said firmly, "It doesn't hurt to say please, or thank you." She told me. I thought she was being childish. Honestly, I'd never noticed if I spoke harshly to her or not, too focussed on the work we were doing to care if I was being polite. I brought a hand up to my forehead brushing away my hair and rubbing at the headache that was slowly forming there, she was exasperating. She laughed then and that only annoyed me more.

"What is so goddamn funny?" I asked and she pointed up to my hair, I looked at my reflection in the glass of one of the cupboards in the room. My hair was stuck up at awkward angles, wiping it away from my forehead had made it look more like I'd been dragged through a hedge than the smoothed back look I'd been aiming for. I started to shout at her, I don't know why I got so angry or exactly what I had said to her, only that some point a long the way I had called her a mudblood.

"Malfoy, calm down." She told me, her voice quiet as she picked up the next ingredient for our potion and dropped it into the boiling cauldron, "See I can help, just stop shouting." She was quieter, it was like I'd knocked all the air out of her and she was deflated. She didn't speak much after that, I had a scowl on my face and probably wouldn't reply if she had spoken.

I felt guilty as we left the classroom, even more so when I noticed the tears in her eyes as she turned away from me to head for the stairs. I could have been nicer, could have been polite but I hadn't been and now she was crying.

* * *

 _Okay so I did a one-shot for the first time under the same name as this one, I really liked the dynamics and have decided to make it a full story so, if you would like to read the one shot feel free, leave a review for me on what you think I should do for the full length thing? Also leave a review here on what you think about this? Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it **~Rainbow Veins**_


	2. Distracted By Her

Mercury's POV

The second time he called me a mudblood, I slapped him. We were fighting again, he was being controlling and arrogant so naturally I was being disobedient and difficult. We were shouting at each other our words jumbled as they ran over one another. I don't think either of us were really thinking clearly. The word mudblood rolled off his tongue without a seconds hesitation and I raised my hand and struck him swiftly across his pale-skinned cheek. He stopped talking and looked down at me, his eyes wide as he was frozen in shock. My eyes were brimming with tears, hurt by his words but it felt good to watch the burning red mark of my hand begin to form on his cheeks.

"What the hell was that for?" He yelled once he was able to compose himself, he didn't even know what he'd done wrong and that just made me feel worse about what he'd said.

"For calling me a mudblood." I told him as I wiped a fallen tear away with the sleeve of my grey cardigan. He looked at me like I'd just struck him again. He apologised to me, which was surprising – in the five years we'd been at Hogwarts I had never once heard of the great Draco Malfoy apologising to anyone. He said he hadn't meant it but that didn't matter now he couldn't take it back, he couldn't unsay it.

Once more we worked in silence, eyes down on the floor, the table, at the cupboards around us, anywhere but on each other. We finished what needed to be finished and then went our separate ways.

* * *

The next I saw of him was at dinner that night, my friends sat around me laughing at something I hadn't caught in the conversation and stuffing their faces with all kinds of amazing foods. I wasn't all that hungry and my eyes scanned the Slytherin table. I must have hit him rather hard because even after the hours between then and now, he still had a red outline of my hand on his cheek.

I couldn't hear his conversation perfectly but what I could make out was one of his followers asked what had happened to his face and Draco brought a hand up to his cheek covering the mark of my hand with his own and shrugged. It wasn't clear what he said next but it sounded a lot like, "I was an idiot." His friend laughed but Draco had already turned away from him, his eyes found and locked with mine.

His eyes were sad and once more he ran a hand across the mark on his cheek. I wouldn't feel guilty for slapping him, he deserved it. I narrowed my eyes at him for a moment before turning my head away, back to my friends and their happy conversations.

* * *

He was nicer after that day, he spoke softer, said please more. Things went a lot smoother when we actually worked together and a lot of the time we finished our work quicker than planned so we'd sit and go over our notes from class, it wasn't always potions either, we shared the same charms and care of magical creatures classes too and would help each other in those if necessary, I don't know how it happened, one day I asked if he knew what the charms homework was and the next thing I know we're study partners for more than just potions. We'd been working together for just over half of our fifth year at Hogwarts and though I still wouldn't call us friends but we were definitely something that we hadn't been before and had managed to get onto first name terms.

* * *

Draco's POV

"Mercury, your handwriting is terrible, how am I ever supposed to read this?" I asked as I shuffled through a pile of her papers, scribbled writing and a mess of doodles. It was an odd name and I'd told her this on more than one occasion but she had just shrugged it off claiming her muggle parents were eccentrics. I couldn't really understand how a poisonous substance could be a name but I guess with a name like mine I couldn't be a judge.

"Most people just call me Mercy." She informed me and took the pile of papers out of my hands to point out what different things said. "And I told you not to rely on my notes, Draco." Every time she said my name it sounded like she was laughing but when I looked up her face wasn't even smiling, just focussed on the words written out in front of her.

"That's still not really a name." I muttered, I hadn't intended for her to hear me but she did and this time she did laugh, I'd grown quite fond of her laugh – I definitely liked it more than her crying - Her entire face would light up, like she emitted sunshine, she was quite radiant when she laughed.

We worked a little longer, she kept rubbing her arms. Mercury always wore these cardigans with sleeves that were ridiculously too long for her yet somehow she always complained the dungeons were cold. I'd told her to bring her cloak but she never had.

"You cold, again?" I asked and she nodded. I thought for a second and then suggested, "Want to head up to the library instead?" She looked thankful for my suggestion and we collected our things together and headed upstairs.

* * *

The library was warm, just like I thought it would be and we made our way to a back corner where there was an empty table. We spread our things out much like we had downstairs in the potions classroom and proceeded to work.

The library proved to be a good idea for a while until Mercury got distracted by all the books, I'd never realised how much she loved to read until she brought over books from the shelves and would read them while I tried to work then she would force them under my nose to make me read a paragraph she found particularly interesting.

It worked liked this for our next few meetings, we'd do any practical potions work in the classroom downstairs then head up to the library where we'd do homework from other classes till Mercury got distracted by books. I liked watching her read almost as much as I liked to hear her laugh, she had a very expressive face so I could always tell what she thought of whatever she was reading and her dark blonde hair would always fall in to her face...

She was distracted by the books and I was distracted by her.

* * *

 _Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review to let me know what I'm getting right or more importantly what I'm getting wrong! Thanks again **~RainbowVeins**_


	3. Strangely I Missed Her

**Mercury's POV**

We started spending more time together, usually we'd spend our evenings in the library and occasionally we'd eat lunch together. There was only a month left of our fifth year at Hogwarts and I hoped my relationship with Draco wouldn't end when the summer began.

We'd started sharing books about half a month ago. Draco had been getting annoyed with me for always interrupting him with lines from my own book so we'd come to the conclusion that we would simply read the same one. He would sit a little behind me since he was taller and could read over my shoulder. It was nice to feel the warmth of him near me and sometimes he would rest his head on my shoulder. I didn't even think he realised he was doing it sometimes.

It didn't always work out, sometimes I turned the page too fast and Draco would get mad because he hadn't finished reading, other times I was too slow and sometimes the books were just uninteresting for either of us. We sat in the library on a Tuesday evening, the same table we always sat at, we weren't doing homework, we weren't talking, we were just reading. I guess I was being too slow to turn the page because Draco broke the silence.

"You seem distracted today, what's the matter?" He asked and at first I wasn't sure I'd heard him right, he almost never asked how I was. In fact we didn't really talk unless it was about school work or to comment on a line in a book.

"Nothing," I murmured and pulled myself out of my seat, closing the book we'd been reading – It had been boring anyway. I wandered over to the stacks to return it to his place. Draco followed me.

"C'mon, you can tell me." He said as I placed the book back on the shelf, he sounded sincere, like he actually cared what I had on my mind so I told him.

"My friends think I spend too much time with you," I told him and he smiled, then his smile became a laugh.

"Is that all?" He asked and I nodded, scowling at him a little since I didn't understand why he was laughing at me. "My friends think I shouldn't even be speaking too you." I frowned at him sadly.

"Why do you?" I asked and he looked at me, the corner of his lip turned down and his eyebrows pulled together a little, the way they did when he didn't understand a question. "Spend so much time with me, I mean."

"Well if you don't want to meet with me at all, you can always stop coming." He said a little harshly and he walked out of the shelves back to our table. I hadn't meant it like that, I hadn't meant to offend him I was just generally curious as to why a pureblood who is known to despise muggle-borns would spend so much time with a said muggle-born.

I told him this as I retook my seat at our table, he'd moved his chair away from me I noticed. His eyes softened as I explained and I felt his foot nudge mine under the table, I dint know if it was maybe by accident but I suspected it wasn't.

"I don't despise muggle-borns," He began to explain, "That is what my father taught a very impressionable young boy who didn't know any better." He said, "I'm not my father, I love him dearly but I am not him." He said this firmly, like he was trying to reassure himself of the truth in this statement, not me. I nodded, I understood what he meant.

"Tell me more about your family?" I asked, curiosity would probably kill me one day but I wanted to know. He looked at me like I must be joking but upon seeing I was totally serious he began to tell me about his parents.

"My father is a little distant, I guess." He began, "He expect so much from me but at the same time he almost forgets I exist." I felt sorry for him, I could tell from the way he talked about his father that he loved him beyond words and it must be hard that his father is so distant. "My mother," He carried on, when he talked about his mother he actually smiled, a real smile. "My mother is the most loving woman I've ever known." He said, "She would do anything for me and she has. I don't know how a woman like her ended up married to a man like my father." He shrugged, "They're both great in their own ways but they're different, too different to work really but it does, I guess."

"It's just the three of us, Malfoy Manor is so large we hardly see one another except for dinner." It sounded cold to me, I didn't tell him this though as I didn't want to offend. He surprised me again after a brief silence.

"What about you?" He asked, "What are your parents like?"

I shrugged in reply, "They're muggles," I said and he cringed ever so slightly at the word before he gestured for me to elaborate. "Mum was a teacher," I said trying to be careful with my words, I didn't think he was all that interested really so I didn't want to bore him.

"Was?" He asked and I nodded.

"Yeah, she uh, died when I was eight." He looked like pained, like I'd just stabbed him in the leg.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" He began, this was everybody's reaction when they found out, to apologise like it was their fault and act like it was something that wasn't okay to talk about.

"It's okay," I told him, "It was a fire, she couldn't get out and died from inhaling too much smoke." I shrugged it off, yes it was tragic but I'd come to terms with it and I didn't let it make me said anymore, even so I moved the conversation along. "Dad's a scientist, I'm not actually sure what he does specifically since it tends to be a lot of smart person mumbo jumbo when he talks about it but he's the best dad in the world. We live on the outskirts of a little village, it's not a manor but it's a big house." I laughed a little thinking about home, "It's so cluttered with stuff that you'd think we didn't have enough room though." Draco smiled at me and I smiled back, I liked talking with him about real things, it was better than all the silences and school work.

 **Draco's POV**

I could tell she missed home by the way she smiled when she talked about it, it was a sad smile.

"My parent's are very anti-muggle." I told her, "My Father more than my mother but still both of them agree to a certain degree that muggles aren't worth anything." I looked down at the table, drawing circles on it's surface with my finger for a moment before looking back up to her, he green eyes were like oceans, I could drown in them if I looked for too long. "I'm sorry," I told her and she looked a little confused, "For all the times I've called you a mu-" I stammered over the wood a little, "A Mudblood." I finished. I called her it more than a handful of times, it slipped out too often when we would argue and she would always hit me or throw something at me – though never as hard as that first time.

"It's okay," She told me but her gaze had lowered to the table and I knew it wasn't okay, it would never be okay. We sat in silence again for a while and I wished that I had never brought it up until she nudged my shoulder with her own – I hadn't noticed her move her chair closer after I moved mine away – and she was smiling at me.

"What do you want to do when you leave here?" She asked me as she pulled her feet up onto her chair, like she was an owl sat of a perch. It was a common question that many of us had been wondering the last few months what with O. this year then our N.E. in two years time but when she asked it, it seemed to mean more.

"Well my father has his own plans for me," I explained, "But I really want to be a healer, you know like a muggle-doctor but without all the cutting and stitching." I didn't think much of muggle doctors, they couldn't do better since they were ill-equipped but the idea that cutting people open and stitching them back together was somehow helping them made me feel a little sick.

"I can see that," She said and I thought she was joking, I couldn't always tell from the way she said things but looking up at her I could see she was quite serious. "Who knows, maybe one day you'll save my life." She teased, a smirking almost smile on her lips.

I thought about what she might want to be, perhaps something to do with magical creatures since she was quite fond of them and always scored high marks in class, but I didn't know for certain so I asked her.

"I want to take pictures." She said like it was exactly the answer I was looking for.

"Okay, but what job do you want?" I asked and she rolled her eyes at me, I liked watching her do that, she always managed a perfect circle, like she spent half her time practising it in the mirror.

"It doesn't matter, I'll be fine doing whatever." She said, "I just want to take pictures." I must have looked confused because she went into this long spiel about how much she loved to take photos, capturing moments forever, it was kind of boring but her enthusiasm about it was enticing so I let her talk about it for as long as she wanted. It wasn't an answer that I expected but there was something very Mercury about it.

* * *

After that night we didn't get to see each other too much, O. took over and we were working nonstop, our exam timetables didn't match up enough to give us free time together, so by the time school ended for the summer I hadn't seen her in two weeks and strangely I missed her.

* * *

 _Two chapters in one night, are you proud of me? - I'm proud of me. Hope you enjoyed it, they're getting to know each other a bit more now which is good I think. Anyways, thanks for the read, leave a review?_


	4. Less Than Anything Else

**Mercury's POV**

I don't know why I was nervous, I guess I thought he wouldn't be there and I didn't want to face the disappointment that would cause, I didn't want to admit things to myself that I wasn't ready to admit. I walked into the library on Wednesday night of the first week of my Sixth Year at Hogwarts, with every step I took towards our table, my stomach churned and my heart took another leap closer to my throat but that all melted away when I saw a familiar mop of pale blonde hair. He was sat in his usual seat, a short stack of books on the table beside him, I should have guess he would already be working.

I walked over to him slowly, silently until I was right behind him and had to work very hard to stop myself from laughing. I threw my arms around his neck, I startled him which had been my aim and I laughed so much as he prepared to get angry and throw a fit like he so often did but instead, upon twisting in my grip and seeing my face, he didn't get angry. It was an odd feeling of a small amount of disappoint and a large amount of happiness both from not seeing him get mad, like I'd lost something but got something better to replace it.

He wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me tightly, it was the first time we'd shown any significant amount of affection for one another, it felt right, like that was how would should be.

"I missed you," I sighed into his shoulder, I was too short to rest my chin on his shoulder so instead I rested my head between his shoulder and his chest. He didn't reply but he did hug me tighter and I took that to mean he'd missed me too.

* * *

We got to pick our own partners that year, a new Potions Master meant new dynamics in class, Professor Slughorn even managed to keep my attention focussed for more than a few seconds during class. I think Draco was a little annoyed by him, he didn't favour him like Professor Snape had, Draco just worked harder in attempt to gain his attention. Draco was very competitive in class, it was amusing to watch, though a little annoying when we were studying or doing homework since he had become too focussed to laugh at things I said or listen to pieces of my book. Like the first few times we worked together.

* * *

I slammed a book down on our table with a loud thud that echoed through the library, somewhere in the distance beyond the shelves Madame Pince shushed me.

"What?" Draco asked looking up from his rather thick stack of notes, I rolled my eyes at him like he should just know what was wrong.

"I may have failed to capture your attention," I began, my voice clearly agitated, "But I've been talking to you for the last ten minutes and you haven't acknowledged a single word I have said." I slammed the book once more for effect before picking it up and disappearing into the stacks. I began to sort through a horrendously unorganised shelf of books, I couldn't understand why people couldn't put the books back where they found them but sorting them calmed me so it wasn't always a losing game.

A moment later Draco joined me, taking half a stack of books from my arms and helping me sort them. "Sorry," He mumbled as he placed a book in is appropriate place. I ignored him because he had ignored me, I'm quite childish like that, really and I'll happily admit it to anyone who asks. "What were you talking to me about?" He asked trying to get me to converse with him, I didn't even look him in the eye as I placed the next book on the shelf.

"I'm sure it can't have been that important." He said, he was trying to make me angry so I'd have to shout at him but I knew him better than he thought I did, I could play this game for as long as I wanted too. He tried several other lines to no avail.

"Mercy, I don't know what you want me to say," He sighed in the end, defeated by my willpower to hold a grudge until I was satisfied enough to let it go.

"You need to stop trying to get Slughorn's attention so much." I told him, "You're like a girl who's desperate for a guy who's never going to notice her."

A smirk adorned his face as he said, "Speaking from experience there?" I hit him almost gently with my last book before putting it away in its slot on the shelf.

* * *

Draco's POV

I tried harder to be less focussed, which seemed ridiculous to me really since I very much wanted to get good grades so being focussed seemed more like an advantage really but who was I to argue with Mercury's logic? Even if it was majorly flawed.

Something was off about her this year, she seemed to get angry easier than she had before. Little things I said that she would usually over look became big things that haunted me for a while before she would rest her head against me while we read and everything was fine again. She seemed sadder too, like the weight on her shoulders was somehow heavier than it had been before, I wished I could carry that weight for her but whenever I asked about her she would shrug me off, say it was nothing and then laugh and joke about it just being a hormone imbalance, that must have been muggle humour because I didn't find it to be particularly funny.

* * *

Four months into our Sixth year and things were still the same, I had thought on more than one occasion that I should have been acting the way she was, my father was desperately trying to get me to join team Voldemort had even tried to rope me in on a plan to kill Dumbledore and was sending me constant letters demanding I do as he said, the majority of my friends had disowned me because of my choice to stay out of it and my choice to stay with her but even all that seemed small in comparison to her being sad.

She hadn't gone home for Christmas and I wondered if she were fighting with her father but that seemed very out of character, she adored her father and from the way she described him, he adored her too.

One afternoon we sat in the library again, it was our safe space and venturing out often seemed like a waste of time. She lay with her feet curled up on her own chair and her head resting in my lap, her eyes were closed but I knew she was awake. I read to her because she claimed she was too tired to read herself and it had seemed like a normal request at the time. If I stopped reading or even paused for too long of a second she would let out a sound that was almost a hum but sort of half a sigh and it would be my cue to start reading again.

When I came to the end of the book, I closed the cover and placed it gently on the table. I waited for her hum, sigh but it didn't come and I wondered if she had really fallen asleep until she spoke.

"My dad is dying." She said, like it was an everyday sentence that could simply disappear like most words did, she didn't even open her eyes to say it. She rolled over slightly so her knees pointed up to the library's high ceiling and her closed eyes stared directly into my wide open ones.

"What?" I asked, it wasn't the smartest question or the best thing I could have said but I honestly didn't know how to handle the situation.

She opened her eyes then and there they were, those deep oceans that I could drown in. "My dad is dying." She repeated, a little slower and pronouncing her words more clearly like maybe I hadn't heard her properly the first time. What does one say to a girl who is more than your friend but less than anything else who has just told you her father is dying?

We had read plenty of books on plenty of different things but none had ever covered this situation.

"I'm sorry," I said, but I knew it wasn't right as soon as I had said it.

"It's not your fault," She told me, "It's cancer. He wouldn't let me come home for Christmas because he didn't want me to see him in the hospital." She closed her eyes once more and instinctively I took her cardigan covered hand and wove my finger through hers, resting them on her shirt covered stomach, like always she was cold, her fingers like ice in my own.

I think I knew then that I loved her, I'm sure I knew it before then but in that moment it became clearer than glass and even clearer that I couldn't tell her. For some reason I didn't think it would help, if anything it would make things worse for her, I didn't want to add the burden of my love for her to her already very heavy shoulders. For now I was content with being more than friends but less than anything else.

* * *

 _This didn't take me as long to write as I thought it was going too so here you go, three chapters in one night yay for me. Don't expect more I'm going to bed now. Seriously. Hope you enjoyed it though and please someone leave a review for me? I feel like I'm just kinda of floating in abyss at the moment, haha. **~RainbowVeins**_


End file.
